Apple Devices Reside in Half of All U.S. Households

Tough economy? Apple wouldn’t know it. Around half of all U.S. households own at least one Apple product, whether it’s an iPad, iPod or Mac, according to a CNBC survey. It’s estimated that some 55 million homes have at least one Apple gadget, and one in 10 of the non-Apple households plans to purchase a fruit-branded product in the next year.
The results on Apple’s penetration in U.S. homes are hardly surprising. The company’s stock recently rose above $600 per share to reach record highs, as over the past decade the company’s profits went from $65 million to $33 billion. At the same time, Apple has sold tens of millions of iPods, iPhones and iPads, dominating almost every market it has entered (besides PCs, of course).
The survey shows the main buyers of Apple gear tend to be male, college-educated, younger and richer: 77 percent of those earning more than $75,000 a year own at least one Apple product, compared with 28 percent of those making less than $30,000 per year. Age is not a barrier though: 63 percent of respondents between 18 and 34 as well as those between 35 to 49 called themselves Apple users, but the percentage goes down to 50 when you look at those aged 50 to 64.
The biggest legion of Apple fans reside in the West, where 57 percent of homes own around two Apple products, compared with 47 percent on average in the rest of the country. People own the least Apple devices in the South, the survey found. Also, regardless of political inclinations, around 56 percent of both Republicans and Democrats own at least one device with the fruit logo on it.
The survey however, does not say which devices the households own, as Macs, iPads, iPods and iPhones are lumped together. The number of people polled in the survey is also relatively low -- 836 Americans, and the survey lacks context such as comparison figures with ownership of PCs or Android devices. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.